By Janine Gericke. Director Megan Griffiths has made a captivating film about how one parent’s absence can have immense complications on the family. While her military father is serving multiple tours overseas, Sadie (a bold performance by Sophia Mitri Schloss) takes it upon herself to make sure he still has […]
A Great Profile Piece – Murray Pomerance and Steven Rybin’s Hamlet Lives in Hollywood: John Barrymore and the Acting Tradition Onscreen
October 23, 2018
A Book Review by Brandon Konecny. For many today, the name John Barrymore means little – except, perhaps, that it shares the same surname with Drew Barrymore (yes, there’s a relation). But in his day, John Barrymore’s work elicited the admiration of many beholders, including Orson Welles. In fact, Welles […]
Colette in the #MeToo Era
By Elizabeth Toohey. If ever a movie was ripe for release, it’s the new bio-pic Colette. The life and career of one of France’s most celebrated novelists hits in rapid succession all the major notes of the MeToo movement, which shows no signs of slowing down, now with the recent […]
Charm in Spades: Tea with Dames
October 12, 2018
By Gary M. Kramer. The gentle, charming documentary, Tea with the Dames eavesdrops on the gossip, memories, and laughs shared by four grand British actresses: Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Eileen Atkins. Director Roger Michell films these longtime friends together, or in pairs, at Plowright’s “cottage,” asking questions […]
White Boy Rick: The Father and the City
By Christopher Sharrett. Yann Demange’s White Boy Rick is a smaller-budget film of the season almost buried by franchise movies like The Nun (of “the Conjuring Universe”), Predator (another franchise reboot), and the usual cascade of juvenilia. The film deserves notice. I want first to take note of one of […]
“Good Sausage”: Felix Feist’s The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950) from Flicker Alley
By Tony Williams. Imagine Lee J. Cobb (1911-1976) playing a star role as an honest cop turned bad played for a sucker by femme fatale Jane Wyatt (1910-2006), an actress not usually associated with such parts but more as the contented spouse of Robert Young (1907-1998) in Father Knows Best […]
Assault of Independence: Lizzie
By Janine Gericke. Lizzie Borden’s infamous story is horrifying. On August 4, 1892, Borden’s father and stepmother were found bludgeoned to death in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie was arrested for the crime, but ultimately acquitted. According to the end credits of Craig William Macneill’s Lizzie, the all-male […]
Pushing Life to the Edge: Free Solo
September 26, 2018
By Elias Savada. Alex Honnold dreams the impossible dream, and he climbs where the brave dare not go. Unlike Don Quixote, he defies death by climbing mountains of sheer granite. Without a rope. Free solo climbing is a solitary affair that is exhilarating to the extreme. A single misstep generally proves […]
Yakuza’s Angry Young Man: Street Mobster (Arrow Video)
September 25, 2018
By Jeremy Carr. Street Mobster found director Kinji Fukasaku at a pivotal point in his career, a situation reflected in the evolution of a genre he had so effectively worked to fashion. Fukasaku made his directorial debut in 1961, with the Sonny Chiba-starring Fûraibô tantei: Akai tani no sangeki, and from […]
Sleep No More: Or, If It Hadn’t Been for Those Meddling Kids….
By Alex Brannan. If one were to just slightly retool Phillip Guzman’s Sleep No More (aka 200 Hours) – eliminate the gore and profanity, shift the characters’ ages, move the time period back a couple decades, and make the least consequential character a canine – the film could easily pass […]